Bush Ups the Ante
Bush and the neocons want war with Iran. Bush is weak, so war would
rouse his base. Got it? With disturbing deja vu, the U.S. Congress and
media are swallowing the administration's torrent of unproven
allegations against Iran precisely the way they lapped up its grotesque
lies about Iraq
Is the cornered Bush Regime trying to provoke an air and naval war
against Iran as a last desperate, ideologically driven assault against
the Muslim world, and divert attention from its Iraq debacle? Or is it
the same old bluff and bluster? [2]
Bush Goes to War...Therefore, He Exists
Maybe what is really going on is that the Bush regime finds itself
competing with Iran for influence with erstwhile allies in Iraq and
losing.
As Washington grows weaker in Iraq, it is concerned that Iran not
pick up the pieces and establish hegemony over its smaller neighbor.
The Bush Regime may also be casting about for some issue that will
galvanize the American public and give it a pretext to expand its
presence in Iraq despite how badly the war has gone. [3]
The Left should Call Bush's Bluff on Iran
Unlike many of my radical left brethren, I am seem to be out of
step about the apocalyptic visions that are currently populating the
web concerning an imminent invasion of Iran.
No doubt the US have plans for every country on the planet, that is
after all, one of the roles of the ‘think tanks’, to do ‘what ifs?’
What if France goes really socialist? What if … But planning
various scenarios is one thing, following through is something quite
different.
I tend to view the release of documents that reveal the existence
of plans to invade Iran as being a quite deliberate ploy on the part of
the US ruling class.
On the one hand to put the frighteners on any country that dares
oppose US objectives and on the other, they bolster just how ‘serious’
the US/UK are about the alleged threat that Iran poses (or any other
country that challenges the US).
The central issue here is the role of propaganda, it's creating a
context that enables the USUK, at some point in the future, if the
necessity arises, to have an entire 'inventory' of reasons why it's so
important to 'take out the mullahs'.
These reasons have to have a complete ideological as well as false
historical context in order to have an effect. They have to exploit the
deeply-rooted racist ideology that has served the interests of
imperialism down the centuries.
It should surely be obvious of the intimate and vitally important
relationship between the MSM and imperialism without which such
disinformation campaigns, constructed often over several years, would
be impossible.
I would say that the timing is not yet right for either an invasion
or attack on Iran, a good deal of groundwork and preparation has first
to be done, some of which if successful might well remove the need for
direct military action.
The 'nuclear threat', Iran's alleged role in Iraq, Islamic
extremism, 'our shared values', are all part of a carefully planned
lexicon, built up over time that will be rolled out by the MSM as and
when the necessity arises. [4]
"The Madman Theory"
Bush is deploying a radical coercive strategy that Nixon had earlier dubbed "the madman theory."
At its core, this strategy consisted in the making of threats of
excessive force by a leader who projected an image of being irrational,
unpredictable, or uncontrollably angry.
A leader who chose this strategy did not actually have to be
certifiably crazy—reckless and ruthless perhaps, but not really mad.
He (or she) simply needed to convince an adversary that he was crazy
enough to carry out his threats. As game theorist Thomas C. Schelling
says:
"...the capability to retaliate can be more useful than the ability to
resist an attack, and that uncertain retaliation is more credible and
more efficient than certain retaliation.
"These insights have proven to be of great relevance for conflict resolution and efforts to avoid war."
So, if the strategy worked and its practitioner won the game's payoffs,
the strategy could be considered "rational" in geopolitical terms. [5]
The 'Dr. Stranglove' Strategy
Tyler Cowen, one of Thomas Schelling’s former students at Harvard
University, explained Schelling’s irrational-behavior theory relative
to nuclear deterrence this way:
Ever see Dr. Strangelove? Tom developed the idea that deterrence is
never fully credible (why retaliate once you are wiped out?).
The best deterrent might involve pre-commitment [e.g., the Doomsday
Machine], some element of randomness [e.g., ambiguity about one’s
deterrent strategy], or a partly crazy leader [e.g., a madman such as
General Ripper]. I recall Tom telling me he was briefly an advisor to
Kubrick.
Michael Kinsley, another former student, recalled a classroom lecture
of Schelling’s whose lesson Kinsley associated with the purposeful
projection of “madness.”
So you’re standing at the edge of a cliff, chained by the ankle to
someone else. You’ll be released, and one of you will get a large
prize, as soon as the other gives in.
How do you persuade the other guy to give in, when the only method
at your disposal—threatening to push him off the cliff—would doom you
both? . . .
Answer: You start dancing, closer and closer to the edge. That way,
you don’t have to convince him that you would do something totally
irrational: plunge him and yourself off the cliff.
You just have to convince him that you are prepared to take a higher risk than he is of accidentally falling off the cliff.
If you can do that, you win. You have done it by using probability to divide a seemingly indivisible threat.
And a smaller threat can be more effective than a bigger one. A threat to drag both of you off the cliff is not credible.
A threat to take a 60 percent chance of that same thing might be credible. . . . Madness can be wickedly rational.
If one of those two folks on the cliff can convince the other that
he is just a bit nuts, that makes his threat to drag them both off the
cliff much more plausible.
Some defenders of Richard Nixon used to claim that the evidence of
insanity that bothered a few Americans was actually a purposeful
strategy to enhance the deterrent power of our nuclear arsenal.
[The same could be said of Bush]
Jonathan Schell had made similar remarks in May 2003:
[Schelling argued that] if you visibly arranged to make yourself a
little bit out of control, the foe would no longer be able to imagine
that you might desist from nuclear war in a last-minute fit of sanity.
They’d think that you might plunge into the abyss in spite of yourself. And so they would fear you, as hoped. . . .
Another solution, also pioneered by Schelling, among others, was
the deliberate cultivation of a reputation of irrationality. Schelling
called this policy the “rationality of irrationality.”
In this policy, the foe would believe in your self-destructive
threats not because it thought you might slip on a banana peel, so to
speak, at the brink but because it believed you just might be lunatic
enough to go over the edge deliberately.
Richard Nixon was one practitioner of this strategy. . . . He called the strategy the “madman theory.” [6]
Call My Bluff
Bush's answer to defeat in Iraq is to start another war, the target, of course, Iran.
He has two rationales that are working for him, Iran's nuclear
program and, as Bush charges quite frequently, Iran's "meddling" in
Iraq by helping out fellow Shiites. Meddling? (Look who's calling the
kettle black)
The drumbeats have begun. And the mainstream media is picking up the
rhythm. The usual prognosticators say the attack will come in April.
America, Beware! Iran is not Iraq. Ahmadinejad is not the patsy the Shah was.
Remember the hostage crisis of 1979 when 66 Americans were held in
Iran for three months during the Iranian Islamic Revolution? As the
saying goes, "Don't Mess with Texas!" The same can be said of Teheran.
[7]
[1]
Ed Strong
[2]
Eric Margolis
[3]
Juan Cole
[4]
William Bowles
[5]
Jeffrey Kimball
[6]
Jeffrey Kimball
[7]
Stephen Fleischman
Writings 
Left-wing websites are full of articles predicting the war against Iran. This is playing into the Bush Regime's hands. Hyping the threat of war was supposed to be the task of the right-wing. Yes, they've done their bit. Particulary, the Zionists in Israel and Washington.
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